Williams v. MORAN, ETC.

Singley, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court for Wicomico County, sitting in equity, which vacated and set aside a deed from Gertrude A. Meehan, widow, to James T. Williams and Madeline S. Williams, his wife, the appellants here and the defendants below, on condition that there be paid to the appellants the sum of $950.00. We find no reason to disturb the determination reached by the Chancellor below. In about 1929, Gertrude A. Meehan and Charles H. Meehan, her husband, purchased a residence situated on a tract of approximately 25 acres, in the Parsons Election District of Wicomico County, a part of which was set in growing timber.

Here the Meehans made their home until the death of Mr. Meehan in the summer of 1961. Thereafter, Mrs. Meehan lived on the premises alone. Mr. Meehan had been ill for some time prior to his death, and recognizing the seriousness of his illness and that his wife was inexperienced in business affairs, had sought the aid of a neighbor, John C. Moran, and “told Mrs. Meehan to take [Mr. Moran’s] advice in everything.” After Mr. Meehan’s death, Mr. Moran assisted Mrs. Meehan in the transfer of certain jointly owned securities, in the reinvestment ²⁸¹ of certain of her funds, saw to it that she was taken to the grocery store at regular intervals, and generally oversaw the maintenance of the residence property. On June 25, 1964 Mr. and Mrs. Moran left for a trip to California and were gone a month.

James T. Williams, the appellant, was a teacher at the Delmar, Delaware High School. He was a son of Louise Williams, who had been a neighbor of Mrs. Meehan’s for about 40 years. The testimony shows that some time in May, 1964, James T. Williams visited Mrs. Meehan and inquired about the possibility of purchasing her farm under an arrangement which would reserve a life interest to Mrs. Meehan. Mrs. Meehan declined to consider this suggestion.

On June 26, the day after the Morans had left for California, Mr. Williams again visited Mrs. Meehan and repeated his offer. According to Williams’ testimony, Mrs. Meehan said that she was willing to sell. Later on the 26th, Williams called Howard R. Elliott, the manager of the branch of the Farmers Bank in Laurel, Delaware, to ask whether he could make an appraisal of the Meehan property. Elliott replied that he could not do so before the “first of the week” and on Monday, June 29, Mr. Williams, Mr. Elliott and Mr. George Schollenberger, a teacher at the Laurel School, went to the Meehan property.

Mr. Elliot “walked over the property” then “got in the car and rode around on Williams Pond Road” and returned with Williams and Schollenberger to the Meehan residence. Mr. Elliott explained to Mrs. Meehan that in his judgment, the property had a value of $5,000.00. At that time the following paper was signed by Mrs. Meehan: “I, Mrs. Gertrude Meehan (Mrs. Charles Meehand) Route #3, Delmar, Md., agree to sell my farm containing twenty-five acres more or less, to James T. Williams, Route #3, Delmar, Md., for the sum of $5,000.00. This certifies that I have received $50 as down payment on the property this date with the balance of $4,950.00 to be paid in full at the time of the transfer of deed and closing of the sale of the property. ²⁸² “It is agreed that I, Mrs. Charles Meehan (Mrs. Gertrude Meehan) be allowed to live in the dwelling that I now occupy for the rest of my natural life or as long as I should desire.” It is not clear whether Mrs. Meehan was given a copy of this paper or what disposition was made of her copy, if she received one.

Some time during the week of June 29, Mrs. Meehan went with the appellant, Mrs. Madeline S. Williams, to her safe deposit box at Delmar where she removed her deed to the property, and thereafter, an attorney, Patrick L. Rogan, Jr., at Mr. Williams’ request, prepared a deed conveying an absolute fee simple title to Mr. and Mrs. Williams. At that time, Mr. Rogan was apparently not advised of the understanding with respect to the reservation of the life interest and no such provision was included in the deed which he prepared. The deed was signed by Mrs. Meehan on July 2, 1964 and immediately thereafter was recorded among the Land Records of Wicomico County. On July 5 or 7, a deposit of $4,981.00 was credited to Mrs. Meehan’s bank account, apparently made by Mr. or Mrs. Williams.

On July 25, 1964, Mr. and Mrs. Moran returned from California, and on July 26, Mr. Moran drove over to Mrs. Meehan’s house to see if she needed anything from town. When he arrived, he found a young man hammering on the barn, who, according to Moran, identified himself as Jimmie Williams, and said, “I live down the road. I bought the place from Mrs. Meehan.” Moran expressed concern about Mrs. Meehan’s ability to adjust herself. According to Moran, Williams replied: “Oh, don’t worry about that; I have given Mrs. Meehan a life right in the place.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Meehan signed an agreement with me at my mother’s house before two witnesses that she ¡can stay there as long as she likes, and I will take care of her as long as she lives.” When Mr. Moran saw Mrs. Meehan, Mrs. Meehan seemed to have been under the impression that the Morans had been to ²⁸³ New York for a weekend. When he asked about Jimmie Williams’ working on the barn, she replied, “Yes, he asked me could he store some things there and I told him he could.” She also told Mr. Moran that Williams was fixing the place up to make it safe. When Mr. Moran suggested that Williams had bought the place, Mrs. Meehan said, “Oh, of course, he didn’t. He was just joking.

He never bought this place. It’s not for sale. And he knows that.” It was at this time that the deposit in the bank account was discovered by Mr. Moran. On August 4, Mr. Moran had Mrs. Meehan examined by Dr. David Warren Shave, a psychiatrist, who testified that in his opinion, Mrs. Meehan was suffering from arteriosclerosis, was incompetent and had probably been incompetent for two years.

On the same day, Mrs. Meehan was taken to the office of Dr. Philip A. Insley by the appellant, Mrs. Madeline S. Williams. Dr. Insley admitted that his examination was not directed at the determination of mental competence but he was of the opinion that she was oriented, in control of her faculties, and probably capable of living alone. Some time in August of 1964, Mr. Williams sold the timber on the Meehan place for $4,050.00, thus reducing his net investment to $950.00. On December 1, 1964, Mrs. Meehan was examined, at Mr. Moran’s instance, by Dr. Earl M. Beardsley, who concluded that she was incompetent at the time of the examination and because of the progressive nature of her arteriosclerosis, had probably been incompetent for between two and three years.

On December 8, Mrs. Meehan was again examined, at Mr. Moran’s instance, by Dr. Shave, who found that there had been little change in her condition and that her intellectual impairment was “about the same.” On December 14, Mrs. Meehan was formally adjudicated an incompetent by the Circuit Court for Wicomico County and Mr. Moran qualified as her Committee. On April 6, 1965 there was instituted by Mr. Moran the Bill of Complaint which gave rise to the decree below, from which this appeal was taken. The record shows that on July 2, 1964, the day that Mrs. Meehan executed the deed to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, she was within two days of being 82 years of age; that she had lived a restricted life; and that after the death of her husband, placed ²⁸⁴ great reliance on Mr. Moran and other friends and neighbors for assistance in meeting the needs of day-to-day living. No effort was made by the appellants to contradict the testimony of Carolyn J. LeCates, who was a senior at the Delmar High School in the year 1964-1965 and when serving dinner for the teachers of the high school just prior to Christmas, 1964, overheard the appellant, Williams, tell another teacher at the school that “he [Williams] had to do something while Mr. Moran was in California.” Of equal importance is the discrepancy in values as fixed by the testimony of expert witnesses.

Howard R. Elliott, the appraiser employed by the appellants, valued the property at $5,000.00, of which he attributed $2,670.00 to the value of the timber, which was later sold for $4,050.00. S. Denmead Kolb and Gerald B. Truitt, appraisers produced by the appellee, valued the property at $25,000.00 and $20,000.00 respectively. All three testified as to recent sales of comparable property, but the record does not indicate whether Mr. Elliott assembled his information on comparable sales before or after he arrived at the figure of $5,000.00 on June 29, three days after he had been employed by Mr. Williams. Mrs. Louise Williams, the mother of the appellant James T. Williams, testified that she had sold lots of less than an acre some 600 to 700 feet from the Meehan property for prices as high as $3,000.00.

I The principal contention made by the appellants is that “The lay witnesses were more qualified to testify as to the mental capacity of Gertrude A. Meehan than Earl A. Beardsley from one examination and Dr. David Shave from two examinations” and cite Berry v. Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Baltimore, 96 Md. 45 , 53 A. 720 (1902) (the Berry will case) and Henkel v. Alexander, 198 Md. 311 , 83 A. 2d 866 (1951) in support of this contention. They also contend that the lower court was in error in its construction of Williams v. Robinson, 183 Md. 117 , 36 A. 2d 547 (1944). The rule of Berry and Henkel is not so broad as that contended for by the appellants. In Berry , medical experts who were not acquainted with the decedent were not permitted “to ²⁸⁵ draw inferences from circumstances testified to by the other witnesses, when obviously those circumstances were insufficient, in the judgment of the court, to warrant a conclusion that the testator was devoid of a testamentary capacity at the time the will was made.” 96 Md. at 57 .

Chief Judge Marbury pointed up the issue in Henkel when he said, 198 Md. at 317 : “Where the question of the mental capacity of anyone on a certain date is the issue, evidence of physicians, who saw the patient at a later date is admissible, if they state that the mental disease from which he is suffering at the later date, was, in their opinion, affecting him at the earlier date, so that he could not then execute a valid deed. But it has been also stated in the decisions so holding that such evidence is not legally sufficient to establish the fact of mental incapacity at the earlier date. (Citing cases.) Here we have the testimony of three physicians who never saw Zimmers until six months after the deeds were executed. The only physician who saw him about that time said he appeared normal, and so did the lawyer and the bank president notary who were present at the time.

Under these circumstances, we cannot agree with the chancellor that there was sufficient evidence to find that Zimmers lacked mental capacity to execute his deed which is here questioned.” Admittedly, the appellee bore the burden of proving Mrs. Meehan’s incapacity. As this Court held in Williams v. Robinson, 183 Md. at 121 , 36 A. 2d at 549 : “The law presumes every man to be capable of making a valid deed or contract. If a complainant in a suit to annul a deed relies upon lack of mental capacity, he must prove it by a preponderance of the evidence.” The burden of showing undue influence, fraud, or a degree of improvidence amounting to constructive fraud is substantially similar, but shifts where a confidential